Next Gen, Nuke-Powered Rover Will Search For Life On Mars
April 22, 2011 6:50 PM Subscribe
Next Gen, Nuke-Powered Rover Will Search For Life On Mars. For seven years, the scientists building NASA’s next-generation Mars rover have been refining every last detail aboard, in order to service one single goal: Searching for signs of life on Mars.
...instead of the previous method of enveloping the rover in protective airbags, propulsive descent jets will cushion Curiosity’s fall. The rover will journey to Mars inside an aeroshell, a protective bi-conical covering composed of a back shell on top and heat shield on bottom. A circular contraption holding eight retro rockets will then ... lower it to the ground.
Curiosity will ingest samples into a couple of key instruments, and do a chemical and mineralogical analysis of what we see in the rocks and soil. So MER was more of a geological package, and this is more of a chemical analysis package ... [Curiosity's] "ChemCam" shoots x-rays into the sample, which scatters the rays in patterns unique to its composition.
...instead of the previous method of enveloping the rover in protective airbags, propulsive descent jets will cushion Curiosity’s fall. The rover will journey to Mars inside an aeroshell, a protective bi-conical covering composed of a back shell on top and heat shield on bottom. A circular contraption holding eight retro rockets will then ... lower it to the ground.
Curiosity will ingest samples into a couple of key instruments, and do a chemical and mineralogical analysis of what we see in the rocks and soil. So MER was more of a geological package, and this is more of a chemical analysis package ... [Curiosity's] "ChemCam" shoots x-rays into the sample, which scatters the rays in patterns unique to its composition.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Looks like this fits pretty well into the already open thread -- restless_nomad
Hey I have an idea!
Let's take a piece of plutonium and wrap it up in a hardened steel container. Then we'll shoot it at mars at 25,000 miles an hour or or so and drop it to the surface using a glorified heat shield. Then we'll leave it on the surface for a few tens or perhaps hundreds of years while it gets sandblasted by windstorms.
What could possibly go wrong?
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:03 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
Let's take a piece of plutonium and wrap it up in a hardened steel container. Then we'll shoot it at mars at 25,000 miles an hour or or so and drop it to the surface using a glorified heat shield. Then we'll leave it on the surface for a few tens or perhaps hundreds of years while it gets sandblasted by windstorms.
What could possibly go wrong?
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:03 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
I hate to break it to you, but RTGs get launched into space all the time.
Personally I'm most impressed with how they intend landing the thing.
posted by Artw at 7:08 PM on April 22, 2011 [6 favorites]
Personally I'm most impressed with how they intend landing the thing.
posted by Artw at 7:08 PM on April 22, 2011 [6 favorites]
The sand is more or less dust, and there is no o2 to oxidize the steel. So there is little chance of serious ablation and decay. On top of this Mars doesn't have much of magnetic field or atmosphere to block radiation so the whole planet is a bit of a frozen continuously irradiated wasteland.
posted by humanfont at 7:11 PM on April 22, 2011
posted by humanfont at 7:11 PM on April 22, 2011
To be fair, RTGs (Radioisotope thermoelectric generators) have long been used to power spacecraft, including Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini-Huygens, New Horizons, and both Viking missions to Mars.
There's also one currently resting in the bottom of the Pacific ocean from Apollo 13. The containers are designed to withstand these sorts of conditions.
posted by orangeseed at 7:12 PM on April 22, 2011
There's also one currently resting in the bottom of the Pacific ocean from Apollo 13. The containers are designed to withstand these sorts of conditions.
posted by orangeseed at 7:12 PM on April 22, 2011
Then we'll leave it on the surface for a few tens or perhaps hundreds of years while it gets sandblasted by windstorms.
What would be wrong with this? The little bit of plutonium inside a radioisotope thermoelectric generator doesn't have all that much potential to cause damage, even when it's within a million miles of living things, which it won't be when it's on Mars (to the best of our knowledge).
There are already some RTGs on the surface of Mars; both Viking landers used them.
Where things get tricky and potentially problematic is when you put RTGs inside nuclear-powered, automated lighthouses, then scatter them around remote northern coastal areas, as the former Soviet Union did. For space applications, though, they're an ideal solution.
posted by killdevil at 7:18 PM on April 22, 2011
What would be wrong with this? The little bit of plutonium inside a radioisotope thermoelectric generator doesn't have all that much potential to cause damage, even when it's within a million miles of living things, which it won't be when it's on Mars (to the best of our knowledge).
There are already some RTGs on the surface of Mars; both Viking landers used them.
Where things get tricky and potentially problematic is when you put RTGs inside nuclear-powered, automated lighthouses, then scatter them around remote northern coastal areas, as the former Soviet Union did. For space applications, though, they're an ideal solution.
posted by killdevil at 7:18 PM on April 22, 2011
But thanks for injecting the obligatory note of knee-jerk anti-nuclear hysteria into the conversation. No conversation about the space applications of nuclear power can escape it, though usually the objections raised have more to do with launch accidents leading to the breakup of the spacecraft and consequent plutonium contamination here on Earth.
posted by killdevil at 7:22 PM on April 22, 2011 [8 favorites]
posted by killdevil at 7:22 PM on April 22, 2011 [8 favorites]
Um, yeah ... and it's got cool new landing technology and a cool new instrumentation package designed especially for identifying life-oriented chemicals.
That's kinda why I found this article interesting enough to post it.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:23 PM on April 22, 2011
That's kinda why I found this article interesting enough to post it.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:23 PM on April 22, 2011
The containers are designed to withstand these sorts of conditions.
Were they designed to withstand these sorts of conditions? I also can't help but wonder if your wording was ever spoken with regard to the construction of the Fukushima reactor housings.
With regard to the various posters who told me about all the RTGs already in deep space, it's a bit different thing dropping one on a planet via a novel re-entry system I would think.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:24 PM on April 22, 2011
Were they designed to withstand these sorts of conditions? I also can't help but wonder if your wording was ever spoken with regard to the construction of the Fukushima reactor housings.
With regard to the various posters who told me about all the RTGs already in deep space, it's a bit different thing dropping one on a planet via a novel re-entry system I would think.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:24 PM on April 22, 2011
I was thinking about posting this myself -- here's a new YouTube mission animation created by the NASA team at JPL, plus a couple of BoingBoing links about the mission:
NASA Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover) Mission Animation [HDx1280]
Mars Science Laboratory + Curiosity Rover: Interview with NASA JPL's Ashwin Vasavada
NASA Mars Science Laboratory + Curiosity Rover: first look (photo gallery)
posted by killdevil at 7:28 PM on April 22, 2011
NASA Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover) Mission Animation [HDx1280]
Mars Science Laboratory + Curiosity Rover: Interview with NASA JPL's Ashwin Vasavada
NASA Mars Science Laboratory + Curiosity Rover: first look (photo gallery)
posted by killdevil at 7:28 PM on April 22, 2011
This is great and all, but did I miss the announcement of a failsafe method for strapping nuclear material to rocket fuel and launching it into space?
Related.
posted by brain_drain at 7:29 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
Related.
posted by brain_drain at 7:29 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
But thanks for injecting the obligatory note of knee-jerk anti-nuclear hysteria into the conversation.
I'm not afraid of nuclear power. I am afraid of the cost lowering compromises that builders of nuclear devices often employ in order to turn a bit more profit. Which leads to things such as this.
It;s not nuclear reactors (or RTGs) that is inherently unsafe, it is the people who build such things who are.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:29 PM on April 22, 2011
I'm not afraid of nuclear power. I am afraid of the cost lowering compromises that builders of nuclear devices often employ in order to turn a bit more profit. Which leads to things such as this.
It;s not nuclear reactors (or RTGs) that is inherently unsafe, it is the people who build such things who are.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 7:29 PM on April 22, 2011
I am afraid of the cost lowering compromises that builders of nuclear devices often employ in order to turn a bit more profit
The same could be said of automobiles, or Wheat Thins, or dinner forks, or anything else produced in a market economy by for-profit companies.
posted by killdevil at 7:32 PM on April 22, 2011
The same could be said of automobiles, or Wheat Thins, or dinner forks, or anything else produced in a market economy by for-profit companies.
posted by killdevil at 7:32 PM on April 22, 2011
or anything else produced in a market economy by for-profit companies by humans with finite means and infinite wants.
FTFY.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:35 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
FTFY.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:35 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
Wheat Thins: by humans with finite means and infinite wants.
posted by Auden at 7:38 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Auden at 7:38 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
I bet that if you crunched the numbers, you would probably find that in the most unlikely worst-case scenario (explosion vaporizes all the plutonium, turning it into a radioactive mist), the fallout would compare to, like one week of emissions from a single coal plant.
posted by ymgve at 7:41 PM on April 22, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by ymgve at 7:41 PM on April 22, 2011 [2 favorites]
How is this thread not a double or doesn't belong in the already open Curiosity rover thread?
posted by hippybear at 7:41 PM on April 22, 2011
posted by hippybear at 7:41 PM on April 22, 2011
I am afraid of the cost lowering compromises that builders of nuclear devices often employ in order to turn a bit more profit.
(As a counterexample, both Aquarius - the Apollo 13 lunar module - and Mars 96 seem to have successfully crashed into the Earth without breaking containment on their RTGs. For a given value of "successfully." But has anyone else felt Wheat Thins taste funny lately?)
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 7:43 PM on April 22, 2011
(As a counterexample, both Aquarius - the Apollo 13 lunar module - and Mars 96 seem to have successfully crashed into the Earth without breaking containment on their RTGs. For a given value of "successfully." But has anyone else felt Wheat Thins taste funny lately?)
posted by The Bridge on the River Kai Ryssdal at 7:43 PM on April 22, 2011
With space stuff, it's known exactly what the worst case scenario is during the 2 minute launch, and thus how to make safe. With nuclear energy, it's impossible to engineer for all possible scenarios over a 40+ year time period, without costing too much.
posted by stbalbach at 8:13 PM on April 22, 2011
posted by stbalbach at 8:13 PM on April 22, 2011
My concern is the "all eggs in one basket" nature of this mission. For the cost if this device we could have sent a dozen Opportunity/Spirit class machines all over Mars.
posted by cosmac at 8:13 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by cosmac at 8:13 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
RTGs are built by Los Alamos National Laboratory under contract to NASA. Not exactly a lowest bidder process, in fact they're ridiculously ungodly expensive and transported in unmarked armed convoys....
posted by miyabo at 8:14 PM on April 22, 2011
posted by miyabo at 8:14 PM on April 22, 2011
The worst thing about them is how damned inefficient they are, a huge waste of a lot of perfectly good plutonium
Well, they are using Pu-238, which I think isn't really used for much else except direct heat generation.
Also, if you are talking about really long term use like the Voyager probes, the fact that maybe a dozen kilograms of Plutonium still provide around 300 watts of power over 30 years later makes them quite efficient in their own way.
posted by Cironian at 8:26 PM on April 22, 2011
Well, they are using Pu-238, which I think isn't really used for much else except direct heat generation.
Also, if you are talking about really long term use like the Voyager probes, the fact that maybe a dozen kilograms of Plutonium still provide around 300 watts of power over 30 years later makes them quite efficient in their own way.
posted by Cironian at 8:26 PM on April 22, 2011
Wheat Thins: by humans with finite means and infinite wants.
Huh, I didn't know Nietzsche was writing ad copy now. Man, his career has really taken a dive.
posted by abcde at 8:47 PM on April 22, 2011
Huh, I didn't know Nietzsche was writing ad copy now. Man, his career has really taken a dive.
posted by abcde at 8:47 PM on April 22, 2011
Poet_Lariat: "Hey I have an idea!
Let's take a piece of plutonium and wrap it up in a hardened steel container. Then we'll shoot it at mars at 25,000 miles an hour or or so and drop it to the surface using a glorified heat shield. Then we'll leave it on the surface for a few tens or perhaps hundreds of years while it gets sandblasted by windstorms.
What could possibly go wrong?"
It's on flipping MARS.
Which, despite those bowing down to our impending technological Rapture, isn't likely to have curious schoolchildren or even scrap metal collectors running around anytime in the next few million years. In the scale of our solar system and the lifetime of humanity, there's much, much nastier surprises kicking around much closer to home.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:05 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
Let's take a piece of plutonium and wrap it up in a hardened steel container. Then we'll shoot it at mars at 25,000 miles an hour or or so and drop it to the surface using a glorified heat shield. Then we'll leave it on the surface for a few tens or perhaps hundreds of years while it gets sandblasted by windstorms.
What could possibly go wrong?"
It's on flipping MARS.
Which, despite those bowing down to our impending technological Rapture, isn't likely to have curious schoolchildren or even scrap metal collectors running around anytime in the next few million years. In the scale of our solar system and the lifetime of humanity, there's much, much nastier surprises kicking around much closer to home.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:05 PM on April 22, 2011 [1 favorite]
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posted by 2bucksplus at 7:02 PM on April 22, 2011